A no-confidence vote to determine Hadja Lahbib (MR)'s future as Foreign Affairs Minister has been set for Thursday, with her party failing to stem the political fallout following her granting of visas to an Iranian delegation for the Brussels Urban Summit.
The furore has failed to die down, despite her recent defence alongside Prime Minister Alexander De Croo at a parliamentary hearing on Wednesday.
They had both argued that they felt obliged to grant the delegation visas as refusing to do so would have sparked another diplomatic incident with Iran, a couple of days after the release of Belgian aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele from Iranian prison.
According to the liberal ministers, the Brussels government were the ones at fault as the region's Secretary of State Pascal Smet (Vooruit), who has since resigned, had been the one to initially invite the Iranians to the capital.
No confidence?
However, their defence did little to convince the MPs present, with the Flemish nationalist party N-VA preparing a motion of no-confidence for the Foreign Affairs Minister. Meanwhile, the government's liberal parties are preparing their own motion of confidence in Lahbib, with both votes set for Thursday.
To further argue the case for Lahbib to stay, the liberal PM (Open VLD) declared the scandal as "case closed," while the Minister for the Self-employed David Clarinval (MR) called on the government to get back to work on Friday.
What both they failed to mention is that the liberals are counting on the support of the left-leaning parties in government for their motion to pass but, as things stand, this could not be further from the case.
Given that Smet was blamed for the whole scandal by Lahbib, it appears unlikely that his party Vooruit will want her to remain as minister. The Belgian green parties in government will also not want back the French-speaking liberal party, MR.
Bouchez vs Greens
Liberal leader Georges-Louis Bouchez has branded the Greens as his party's natural enemy in government. The tensions are such that the Environmental Minister, and former leader of the French-speaking Greens (Ecolo) Zakia Khattabi told the LN24 TV channel on Friday that "the less [Bouchez] has to do with this, the more likely we are to get out of this mess."
Bouchez appeared on TV on Thursday to defend the Foreign Affairs Minister, telling RTBF that "Hadja Lahbib has not made a mistake and thus, does not need to resign."
He went on to state that his party had "not said a word about Sarah Schlitz," Ecolo's former Belgian State Secretary for Equality who resigned after being accused of lying to parliament. Sources close to Schlitz described Bouchez's comments as a falsehood, however, criticising him for showing "bad faith."
In any case, Lahbib, Bouchez and the whole of the Belgian Government will spend the weekend debating and preparing for next week, which could end with a new Belgian Foreign Minister being appointed.
